Cardinals Approve Vatican Bank President's Dismissal

Europe Online
June 3, 2012

http://en.europeonline-magazine.eu/cardinals-approve-vatican-bank-presidents-dismissal_213351.html

Vatican City (dpa) - A Vatican commission of cardinals has given final approval to last month‘s controversial decision by the board of the Vatican bank to dismiss its president, Ettore Gotti Tedeschi, reports said Saturday.

The functions of president of the bank - known as the Institute for Religious Works (IOR) - would be assumed on an iterim basis by deputy-president, Ronaldo Hermann Schmitz, papal spokesman, Father Federico Lombardi, was quoted as saying by the ANSA newsagency.

Lombardi also denied Italian newspaper reports of a split between the five cardinals making up the commission over Gotti Tedeschi‘s ousting by the board on May 24.

The reports, some of which claimed that cardinals Attilio Nicora and Jean-Louis Tauran had sided with Gotti Tedeschi, were "absolutely baseless," Lombardi said.

Gotti Tedeschi was the chief of Spanish bank Banco Santander‘s operations in Italy when he was appointed to head the IOR in 2009. The move was seen as part of a process to introduce greater transparency in the bank‘s dealings.

Gotti Tedeschi led efforts to get the Vatican on to the so-called "white list" of financially transparent countries that comply with international measures against money-laundering and other illegal activities such as the financing of terrorism.

But Gotti Tedeschi was himself placed under investigation by Italian magistrates in 2010 in connection with an anti-money laundering probe. He denied any wrongdoing and no charges have been pressed to date.

However, in recent months reports linked Gotti Tedeschi to the so-called Vatileaks scandal in which confidential Vatican documents appeared in Italian media. A Vatican investigation into the leaks last month led to the arrest of the pope‘s butler on suspicion of theft.

One of the reasons given by IOR board members for voting a no-confidence motion against Gotti Tedeschi was his alleged inability to explain why confidential documents in his possession had been leaked to the media.

The Vatican has however denied any link between butler Paolo Gabriele‘s arrest - which was announced a day after the board fired Gotti Tedeschi - and the IOR‘s president‘s dismissal. dpa pwm mat Author: Peter Mayer